WASHINGTON – A key figure in the funny-money probe broke his silence yesterday – telling a congressional committee China tried to buy him off to keep him from talking to the FBI.

Johnny Chung, a California businessman who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Democratic National Party – and President Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign – said Robert Luu encouraged him not to cooperate with the FBI.

“Luu said they would give me money to take care of my legal expenses,” Chung said. He contended Luu – whom he first met in 1996 in a Beijing karaoke bar – told him “Commander Lee” wanted Chung’s silence on the funny-money probe.

“The message was as follows: ‘If you keep your mouth shut, you and your family will be safe,'” said Chung, who earlier took the Fifth Amendment before the House Committee on Government Reform but testified yesterday after working out a no-jail plea bargain with the Justice Department.

During a five-hour hearing, Chung also said a senior Chinese military official gave him $300,000 to funnel to Clinton and that he wore a wire when he began cooperating with the FBI.

The committee, headed by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ill.), has for two years investigated reports of campaign-finance violations associated with the 1996 election cycle.

Chung is the biggest player in the funny-money scandal to testify before the committee. A total of 121 people have refused to testify; 80 have pleaded the Fifth Amendment and still others are oversees and unavailable to investigators here.